And I Will Sing a Lullaby
by LoveHP
Summary: Petunia Dursley remembers something dark about Harry Potter, the boy she hates. Warning for neglectattempted infanticide.


**And I Will Sing a Lullaby**

Simple and unpoetic is my hate towards the boy. For fifteen years I have kept it silent; just as quiet and cold like when I had touched him as a small child. For him, love has never come easily from us, even though... even though that abnormal man said that my sister's love, whose blood flows in me, will protect him. But not my love. Never has it been my own love.

He knows this now, very well.

The boy is humming to himself as he sweeps the hallway. His eyes are more haunted than the summer before when those nasty foul things attacked my Dudley. His eyes are duller and murkier, like polluted water not even animals would drink from. They make me smile, reminding me less of Lily without their usual sparkle.

"Golden slumber kiss your eyes..."

I am instantly frozen at hearing those words. He sings softly, but each word sends a chill through me, making me remember dark things I had hoped had been buried a long time ago.

"...Smiles await you when you ri-"

"Where did you hear that song?" I ask, aghast. My hand grips the railing of the staircase.

He looks up, and leans casually on the broom. His bare arms show nearly healed scabs and cuts he must've gotten from that school of his. "I heard a mother singing it to her baby in the park. It got stuck in my head," he replies. His face scrunches up in dismay. "I'm allowed to sing, am I? I'm only whispering anyway."

"Yes... well..." I certainly didn't want those freaks hearing about his aunt not letting him sing in the house after they threatened us at Kings Cross a week ago. I let him be, returning to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.

_Golden slumber kiss your eyes..._

I loved singing that lullaby to Dudley as a baby.

Staring out of the kitchen window I remember, all too well, _his_ arrival.

For a few weeks we had had the boy sleeping in a makeshift cot in Dudley's nursery. It wasn't anything special, but he fit in the old fruit crate Vernon found in the garage perfectly. It was a short term solution until he was a little older to live in the smallest space in the house; the cupboard under the stairs, which we felt wouldn't be such a waste of space.

I didn't think the boy knew then that his parents had died; he was too young to comprehend, too innocent to grasp the concept of death when he cried for his mother. I wished he would. He screamed so much that first week. I wanted him shut up and stop acting like a normal child, because he wasn't. He wasn't like my Dudley. He was Lily's boy. A freak.

While I indulgedmy own little one with exuberant kisses when he did the most darling little things, I found that everything the little freak did annoying. I didn't want to go near him. If I had known that taking him into our home would mean some sort of pact, I would've given Vernon the choice of taking the child to the orphanage.

Dudley usually cried when it was bedtime. He always cried whenever he didn't get what he wanted. He was and still is my perfect little angel, so I gave him all the attention I could muster. Though, never for _him_. He wasn't mine, so why should I have cared? We only gave him shelter, food and clothes. He didn't deserve the other things I gave Dudley.

"MAMMAA!" Dudley screamed whenever I switched the light off in the nursery.

Night after night I'd switch the light back on, and smile over at Dudley's cot, ignoring the other boy. "What is it now, my little Bobkin?"

Dudley sniffled loudly, his little pink mouth quivering andhis eyes big. His blue eyes always made me feel warm inside. "Mama," I always remembered him saying. Sometimes he threw toys out of the cot to get that extra bit of love from me, as if his fingers were tugging my very heart toward him.

The other baby watched while I picked up my son, and he'd always react to this by spreading his smooth untainted hands, wiggling his fingers at me as though I would soon pick him up as well. I always turned away from him and concentrated on Dudley, rocking him in my arms as he sucked his thumb.

"Golden slumber kiss your eyes," I sang softly to my son. "Smiles await you when you rise." I grinned whenever he closed his eyes. "Sleep, pretty baby." His mouth relaxed, and his thumb was let loose. "Do not cry ... And I'll sing you a lullaby." I hummed a little, rocking him back and forth before placing him in his cot, and tucking the bed sheets around him.

The other boy was always still awake, his arms still outspread, making the kind of pained expression that Dudley made when he didn't get what he wanted. I hesitated before doing anything, thentiptoed my way to the crate where I firmly placed him flat on his back and tucked him under his blanket. That was all he ever got from me...

"Mum?"

I am startled by Dudley's suddenly grown up voice. It felt like he was _really_ a baby moments ago. Dudley is waiting for my attention.

_"Mum."_

"Hmmm?" I realise I've been staring at the kettle, boiling on the stove. I had been thinking for a good few minutes. "What is it?"

"Are you all right? Anyway, I'm going out with friends. I'll probably be back at nine," Dudley says.

I nod sullenly, pouring the hot water into a cup and dunking the teabag into it. I return slowly to my seat, still hearing the other boy humming outside in the hall.

I hate his ghastly scar, I suddenly think, and then another dark memory floods my mind...

I had finished bathing Dudley in warm shallow water. He was so absolutely adorable playing with the bubbles that I had to get Vernon in to take some photos. It was the boy's turn next. Nothing special, no photos this time, and no bubble bath. Just cool water. I got an idea, and to me, hearing it played out in my head made it sound brilliant. I knew that it was going to work perfectly. I thought what I was doing wasn't wrong. I opened the tap and let the water flood into the tuba lot more, so that the water was deeper than I would normally have bathed Dudley in.

He made tiny little noises when I sat him on the changing table. As I took off his singlet, he plucked a clean nappy from the table. I ripped it out of his grip and quickly removed the rest of his baby clothes, before he could destroy something I used for Dudley.

He wailed for a moment when I placed him in the cold water. "Stop it! It's only water." He soon got used to it.

He giggled when I shampooed his hated black hair, my patience wearing thin.

"Ba. Ba ... baba," he had cooed, splashing his hands around, getting my blouse wet. I was getting extremely annoyed, especially since he wouldn't have been able to understand me if I told him to stop it.

Squirting a little baby wash onto a sponge, I became frustrated when he had clung to me with his nasty little fingers, as ifI, out of all mothers, was his!

I would never be a mother to a freak.

I wanted him to know that I hated him, that I didn't want him to be real. And if he only stayed still and didn't act like a helpless baby, then maybe I would've felt better.

"Mama," he said ... but not to me, although he glared into my face; he wanted Lily. I looked away. He was completely unaware that I loathed his green eyes most of all.

_Care you know not..._

It seemed so easy for my hands to let go of his small body, feeling only cool air instead of the baby. I was dimly aware that he had disappeared under the water. It was like dropping a plate in a sink, but with bubbles rising to the surface. My right dips in again and I placed it firmly on his chest.

_Therefore sleep ... While I o'er you watch do keep._

My left hand was covered with soap while I knelt motionless by the bathtub, staring down at him, hearing light splashes and bursting bubbles, and the drip, drip of water cascading off my hand.

_Sleep, pretty darling._

His image was skewed by the rippling fluid. He almost looked too fake to be a real little boy. It was like a water coloured painting by an impressionist, and the best feature about it had been the eyes. The image had no eyes... no Lily, no freakiness about it, and no responsibility for a thing I did not want to care for.

His arms thrashed around a little more vigorously as time slipped by. I saw his distorted little face, perhaps trying to cry... trying to understand the new world his eyes saw. I always wondered if he had understood what was happening... wondered wat he saw of me while he was underneath the water.

_Do not cry..._

Something within me screamed, it almost sounded like Lily, and suddenly both my hands were beneath the water, pulling his head above the surface. Instantly my ears were bombarded with cries of betrayal and a spat of coughs.

_And I will sing a lullaby..._

I couldn't go through with it.

I lifted him out of the bath and hugged him tightly in a moment of guilt, glad that he was still alive. His cries and coughs were ringing in the room around me, hurting my ears-

"I remember."

I jolt in my chair, realising that the tea is scolding both my hands. I look up and see James at the other end of the table, staring at me through eyes that belonged to Lily.The boy still manages to make me shiver in my warm seat.

"What?"

"I know what you did."

I hate him because I let him live.

"I don't understand-"

"And I'll sing you a lullaby..." he replies, closing his eyes. "You never did."

I despise him because I let him live every single day after that. I let his eyes continue haunting me, letting the very thought of James, who was responsible for killing my sister, get to me. But most of all, it is the thought of Harry James Potter surviving over my freak of a sister.

"Oh." I'm so lethargic that his words wash over me.

"I understand now." He nods. "You hated my dad more than my mum, didn't you? You were jealous of Lily for getting the attention, but you still loved her. That's why you were in contact with Dumbledore before she died. But it was my dad that really makes you hate me isn't it? He stole her away."

"You're getting there..." I say coldly, turning my cup with nimble fingers.

He squirms and then says slowly, "She died saving me... that's what really eats at you."

"Perhaps."

Eventually he stopped crying, after all those times he had ventured beneath soapy water, smelling of rose or lavender. I lost count at how many times my plan failed, and failed in extinguishing what was left of James's bloodline, so it is never to destroy another family again.

"Why didn't you do it?"

"Sing?" I ask.

He stopped crying in the dark cupboard too.

"No," he smirks, tilting his head a little. "Put an end to your misery. You would've done both of us a favour."

_I wasn't strong enough, because it was wrong._

His scarred hands elegantly leave the table's edge and he walksoff, humming to himself ... taunting me.


End file.
